The Alpha's Cursed Mate Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: The Poisoned Web

The day after my clandestine meeting with Brenna, the outpost felt like a powder keg. I moved through my duties with a brittle focus, my senses on high alert. The Bond was a low, steady thrum of Camién’s watchful tension. He knew something was happening, but he didn’t know what. The silence between us was no longer professional; it was accusatory.

Seraphine, meanwhile, was a vision of innocent charm. She held court in the sunlit gardens, laughing with Vampire courtiers and even charming a few of the younger, more impressionable Lycan warriors with stories of ancient battles. She seemed utterly at ease, which only made my suspicion feel more like paranoia.

It was there, amidst the rose bushes, that she found me. I was trying to enjoy a moment of solitude, but Ember was restless, her hackles raised by the Duchess’s proximity.

“Alisson, my dear,” Seraphine purred, gliding over to me. Her smile was all warmth, but her violet eyes were chips of ice. “You look so serious. Still brooding over our little misunderstanding? I do hope you haven’t taken my words to heart.”

“I don’t brood, Duchess,” I said, my tone flat. “I observe.”

“A valuable skill,” she conceded, plucking a perfect, blood-red rose. “But one must be careful not to… observe the wrong things. Or to draw the wrong conclusions.” She held the rose out to me. “A peace offering?”

I didn’t take it. “I have no interest in your games, Seraphine.”

Her smile didn’t falter, but her eyes narrowed. “Such fire. No wonder Camién finds you so… diverting.” She leaned in, her voice dropping. “Tell me, does the mighty Crimson Wolf always fear a simple flower? Or is it just my gifts you distrust?”

It was a challenge. A public one. Refusing it would look like weakness, like fear. Accepting it was walking into her web. Gritting my teeth, I reached for the stem.

The moment my fingers touched it, I knew it was a mistake. A tiny, almost invisible thorn pricked my thumb. A sharp, cold pain shot through my hand, followed by a wave of dizziness. I recoiled, dropping the rose.

Seraphine’s eyes widened in feigned concern. “Oh, my! The thorns on these cultivated breeds are so vicious! Are you quite alright?”

Before I could answer, the world tilted. A strange lethargy seeped into my limbs. The Bond flared in alarm—a sharp, cold spike from Camién’s end. He had felt it.

“What did you do?” I slurred, my tongue feeling thick.

“I? I offered a flower,” Seraphine said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. She raised her voice, drawing the attention of everyone in the garden. “Someone fetch a healer! The poor girl seems unwell!”

I stumbled back, my vision swimming. The faces around me blurred into a swirl of concern and curiosity. Then I saw him. Camién was striding across the garden, his expression grim.

“What happened?” he demanded, his voice cutting through the murmurs.

“It was nothing, really,” Seraphine said, fluttering her hands. “A tiny prick from a thorn. She must have a rare allergy. How… unfortunate.”

Camién’s gaze snapped to me, then to the rose on the ground. I saw the doubt in his eyes, the cold, clinical assessment. The Bond was a chaos of his alarm and his ingrained suspicion. Was this a weakness? A Lycan frailty?

“I’m… fine,” I insisted, pushing myself upright, fighting the woozy sensation. The poison—because it was poison, I was sure of it—was fading, but it left behind a residue of humiliation and rage.

“She does not look fine,” Camién stated, his voice devoid of warmth. He took my arm, his grip firm. “You will see a healer.”

It was an order. A public display of control that made my skin crawl. I tried to pull away, but my limbs were still leaden. “Let go of me. It was a trick. Her—”

“Enough, Alisson,” he cut me off, his voice low and harsh. “This is not the time for your… accusations.”

Your accusations.The words were a slap. He didn’t believe me. He saw only a Lycan making a scene, reacting with animalistic suspicion to a gracious—if careless—gesture from a noble lady.

Seraphine watched us, a tiny, triumphant smile playing on her lips. “Perhaps the strain of the Bond is taking its toll,” she murmured, just loud enough for the nearest spectators to hear. “Such a… primal connection can be so destabilizing for the simpler constitution.”

The insult was perfectly aimed, perfectly timed. It painted me as unstable, jealous, and weak. And Camién, bound by duty and his own ingrained prejudices, was playing right into her hands.

He all but dragged me from the garden, away from the prying eyes. Once we were inside the empty hall, he released me as if I were contaminated.

“Explain yourself,” he said, his voice like frozen steel.

The last of the dizziness cleared, leaving only white-hot anger. “She poisoned me! It was on the thorn! It was a setup to make me look weak and paranoid!”

“Poison?” he repeated, his tone dripping with skepticism. “Seraphine is a Duchess of the Blood Court. She would not resort to such childish, petty tricks.”

“Wouldn’t she?” I shot back, stepping into his space. “Or is it just easier for you to believe that than to believe the ‘unmanageable anomaly’ you’re tied to might actually be right?”

His eyes flashed with anger. “This is precisely what I warned you about! Your reckless emotions, your refusal to think—”

“My refusal to think?” I laughed, a harsh, broken sound. “I found evidence, Camién! Reports linking her forges to Hunter weapons! I was going to tell you, but I didn’t trust you to believe me over one of your own! And look at you now! Proving me right!”

The words hung in the air between us, a confession and an accusation all in one.

He went very still. The anger in his eyes was replaced by something colder, more dangerous. “What evidence?”

I told him. About Kael’s reports, the Obsidian Spire, the denied request for investigation. With every word, his expression grew more shuttered, more remote.

When I finished, he was silent for a long moment. “You withheld vital intelligence from me,” he said finally, his voice dangerously quiet. “You took your suspicions to your own people instead of your… partner. You let your personal feelings cloud your judgment, and now you have given a powerful enemy the perfect ammunition to discredit you.”

He didn’t say he believed me about the poison. He didn’t say he believed me about the forges. He focused on my failure. My betrayal of our shaky partnership.

The Bond was a frozen wasteland between us. The fragile trust we had built on the trail was shattered, replaced by a chasm of mutual distrust.

“Get out,” I whispered, my voice trembling with a fury so intense it threatened to consume me. “Get out before I do something we’ll both regret.”

He looked at me for a long moment, his face a mask of cold disappointment. Then he turned and left without another word.

I stood alone in the empty hall, the ghost of a poisoned thorn burning in my thumb, and the much deeper wound of his disbelief festering in my heart. Seraphine’s web had closed around me perfectly. And Camién, the one person who should have had my back, had chosen to see the trap instead of the truth.